5 Tips for Buying Television Airtime

By admin • January 26th, 2009

Building a television advertising campaign consists of two major components: creating your TV ad and building your media plan. In creating your ad, you not only need a good offer, but also a good message that sets you apart from your competition. Take time to analyze your marketplace and develop your unique benefit statement, also known as your unique selling point (USP). The media plan is the air time schedule of programs, days and times where you TV ad will appear.

With television airtime buying, typically you should spend at least 5 to 10% of your gross profits on TV advertising. But, you want your advertising dollars to go as far as possible because it takes at least 6-8 times of being seen before your audience comprehends and acts upon your message. These tips let you know good strategies for buying television air time for maximum exposure at the lowest possible cost.

Prime time TV advertising slots go for thousands of dollars, and national network prime time is 10 times that amount. However, you can get cable advertising for $4 to $25 per 30-second spot, depending on the television networks you choose and time of day your spots air.

Offering cash up front can save you an additional 10% to 15%. The sooner the sales manager can get the money, the sooner he/she can collect a commission. So, cash up front can be a valuable bargaining chip.

TV ads that air in January, February, March, July, August and December 15th through the 31^st. And, ads run during the first weeks of the month are less expensive than for other times of the year. Consider buying air time during these times.

Buy advertising or even host your own show on your local cable community channel. Your show would have to be community-focused and benefit those watching the channel, but it’s a great way to promote your upcoming seminars or events.

Try Sport Runner. With its proprietary media-planning engine, you can target customers by demographics, networks and specific neighborhoods. You can buy primetime ad space on major networks, local broadcast and cable channels such as CNN, Bravo, ESPN and HGTV. Depending on the market, the average cost per TV spot ranges from $13 to $63. So, you could potentially reach 80,000 households more than 200 times for less than $10,000.Â

When working with KMG Television Advertising, you get access to discounted TV advertising and Kelly Media Group will even help you produce a commercial or infomercial, all under one roof.Â Also consider KMG for superior direct mail marketing and internet advertising.